Aurora Sightings?

[Anomalocaris]

I think the mystique of the SR-71 is heavily overblown.    I believe the SR-71 was never actually flown OVER the Soviet Union because of high confidence even in the mid 1960s that once an SR-71 is actually over the multi-layered, heavily networked soviet ground air defense system, the soviet would be able to pass tracking and fire control information from ground node to ground node and be able to readily shoot it down by sending information ahead and engaging the SR-71 with missiles and interceptors from favorable angles. 

SR-71 ever only skirted the outer edge of the outer most layer of soviet air defense,  because this approach allows the SR-71 to only remain in the coverage of one of very few ground nodes in the soviet air defense, and the. Only briefly.  This does not give the soviets enough time to position interceptors, and not opportunity to coordinate SAM fire from different nodes, before the SR-71 leaves coverage zone and escapes. 

In the late 1980s, it became clear the new generation of soviet interceptors such as the MiG-31 no longer depended on ground tracking and control, and had the radar and computer power to search for targets and manage interception autonomously.  Once this happened, it became clear SR-71 won’t be safe even skirting the edge of the soviet air defense systems because the interceptors can range out independently of the ground system and create a serious danger zone for the SR-71 so far out beyond soviet borders that it can’t see anything inside the USSR.   I think that above all else was the reason why SR-71 was considered firmly obsolete by late 1980s.

The story of aurora is nonsense not because aviation technology stood still after SR-71.   It is nonsense because manned, ultra-high speed, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft, glamorous as it is, is fundamentally hopelessly on the wrong side of a technological inequality between how easy it is to improve performance of missiles vs how easy it is to improve performance of aircraft.

Pretty sure it was SR-71 pics that Col. Perroots analysed showing Bears, Backfires and Floggers fully armed and ready to go in Nov. '83 (Able Archer)

The alarming aspect of the soviet reaction during the Able archer crisis was the simultaneous high readiness level of the forward deployed soviet forces in Eastern Europe.    Similarly high apparent readiness levels had been routinely attained piece meal during soviet exercises inside Soviet proper.

This made it look like the Soviets were not simply practicing or evaluating each piece of true alert mobilization, but was alert mobilizing for real.